Carole Robb is one of a number of talented British artists who studied at the British School in Rome during the 1970s. Like Stephen Farthing (b.1950) and Christopher Le Brun (b.1951), she rejected abstraction in favour of a figurative style informed by old master painting. This drawing is part of a group of fourteen works (E.3719 to 3732-2004) that illustrate Robb's journey through Rome to Tivoli, and the Veneto, that she undertook in 2003/4. As such, it constitutes a contemporary uprise to the V&A's numerous Grand Tour watercolours of Italy, dating from the 18th and early 19th centuries.
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This watercolour focuses on the movement and energy of water currents. The effects of different flows of current are shown throughout the composition. The central right area seems relatively flat and calm while the thicker agitated lines of the top left convey the sense of restless water, possibly caused by the wind blowing against the direction of the tide. The splash of blue in the immediate foreground and the swirling shapes form a small whirlpool or the eddy of a current flowing past an object which is out of sight. The two diagonal lines which cross the horizontal stretch of water suggest the lines of a boat receding into the distance, which has had little impact upon the river’s currents.
